Michel Barnier’s phrase that irritates Macronists

Against the backdrop of the laborious composition of the government, the tax issue has sparked a dispute between the former presidential majority and the Prime Minister, who is publicly questioning the record of past economic policy.

“The budgetary situation that I am discovering is very serious”the sentence Michel Barnier pronounced on Wednesday September 18th has the potential to further strain relations between the Macronists and the new Prime Minister. Public opinion is thus called to witness the seriousness of the situation of public finances, enough to further anger the former majority, which does not want its record to be called into question, nor to be mistreated in the future government.

A real war of nerves is taking place between the two camps. Michel Barnier’s phrase which “discover” a “very serious budgetary situation” and ask “all the elements to appreciate its exact reality” is badly experienced by the Macronists. Bercy denies having passed over elements in silence. On the day of Michel Barnier’s appointment, Bruno Le Maire and his Budget Minister Thomas Cazenave sent him, by motorbike, a letter on the financial situation. The following Tuesday, Michel Barnier and the tenants of Bercy had lunch together at Matignon to discuss it in person. Bruno Le Maire himself has been hammering home for three years that the “the situation is serious”that we have reached the “alert level” and said last week that “the awakening will be painful”.

“There is no “no corpses anywhere”Thomas Cazenave defends himself on BFM. Macronists find Michel Barnier’s way out “unforgivable”that “It doesn’t make him look good to do that”. A Bercy advisor says: “Barnier only had to open the door of the office opposite”Opposite the Prime Minister’s office is that of his chief of staff, Jérôme Fournel, who was previously Bruno Le Maire’s.

So if Michel Barnier pretends to discover the seriousness of the financial situation, it is to dramatize the issue. He promised to tell the truth, and the truth is that the finances are in the red, that France is under surveillance by Brussels for excessive deficit.

This is not the first time that a head of government has sounded the alarm in this way. In 2007, François Fillon said: “I am at the head of a state that is in a situation of bankruptcy”. Michel Barnier, like François Fillon at the time, is signaling to the French that he is inheriting a difficult situation for which he is not responsible. Having just arrived at Matignon, the new Prime Minister is not responsible for the budgetary slippages. “Saying that it’s serious when it’s not his fault makes him look like the savior, whereas when Le Maire says it, he’s accused of being responsible.”judges an adviser to the executive.

“Barnier is absolutely right to do thisboasts an LR deputy, “Anything that marks a break is a good thing”because the right does not want to be in the continuity of Macronism. Saying that it is very serious allows above all to prepare minds for difficult decisions: drastic reduction of spending or tax increases. It is also a way of telling Gabriel Attal, or Gérald Darmanin, that it is not very “responsible” to put obstacles in its way in this explosive budgetary context.